4 Steps to Create Your Ideal Buyer Persona

The start to any marketing plan should start with a simple question, Who.  Who are you trying to talk to?  Who do you want to read or see your content?  Could your product or service best benefit young adults or retirees?  This is called building a buyer persona.  When you create your company’s buyer persona, this ensures that all efforts are geared towards targeting your persona.  The perfect persona can help keep your business and centered to your goal and to the needs of your clients/customers.

How to Create a Buyer Persona

Your buyer persona is not written in stone, as time goes on your needs and your ideal customer’s needs will change.  So, don’t be concerned if over time you need to make small adjustments here and there.  Ideally, you are searching to construct a persona that will navigate the buyer’s journey.

1. Know your company

Ultimately you are creating your buyer persona to advance your company while connecting with your audience.  Knowing your goals and where your company stands currently can help you construct your ideal buyer persona.  Set aside an hour or two to strategize your company’s goals for the next year, five years, 10 years and so on.

1. Assess your data points and trends

This can encompass a variety of data.  As you’re sorting through the content, keep in mind the who.  You should be gathering as much information as you can, creating a spreadsheet should help with organizing the data that you receive.

Tools:

• Google Analytics
• Bing Places
• Social Media Demographics
  • Facebook demographics
  • Twitter analytics
  • LinkedIn analytics

There are a few aspects that you must keep at the back of your mind while filing through this information, you should be aware of your company’s highest points of revenue are.

1. Research & interview current and past buyers

There is a benefit to being able to reach out to past and current clients.  It can be done by scheduling a simple meeting or connect with them with a survey can go a long way.  This is going to be your gold information.  These are people you have already interacted with or interacted with your company.  Creating the right survey could be hard, get help creating a survey.

1. Start connecting the dots

Now that you have a good amount of information from your research, now it’s time to assess what you have.  Look over the numbers and demographics that you have accumulated and match it to the products that they gravitate towards.

Can you have more than one persona?

Yes.  Depending on the product or service you are selling, you could have more than one.  However, you should focus on building one persona at a time.  As you go through these steps you will be able to discover how your ideal persona can be built.

Could more women from 25-35 with children that have at least an AA in education gravitate toward your products?  Or maybe it is also men from 30-40 that are married that have pets and actively search for economic deals.  The more you know about the individuals that have searched for your products or returning customers the clearer your persona(s) will be.